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Plane crash claims KHL club: 'The team is gone'

A doomed Russian charter carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team overshot the end of a runway before the plane took off and crashed into a radio mast Wednesday, killing nearly everyone on board.

Among the dead were several former NHL players, including the team’s Canadian head coach, Brad McCrimmon, who was also a former assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings.

Two former Maple Leafs, Igor Korolev and Alexander Karpovtsev, died in the crash, along with former NHLers Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, Karlis Skrastins, Josef Vasicek and Karel Rachunek.

Korolev played with current Maple Leaf Nikolai Kulemin in the KHL in Magnitogorsk.

“Igor Korolev was my friend,” Kulemin said Wednesday at Leaf practice. “I know all the guys, all young guys, I played junior with them. I know everybody because I played in that league three years. It’s crazy.”

After the aircraft collided with an airport beacon antenna, it slammed into a riverbank, catching fire and breaking into several pieces.

“At first we didn’t believe it. But right now, there is no hope. The team is gone,” a Lokomotiv official said soon after the accident on a Twitter feed.

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Of the 45 on board, two survived the initial crash, player Alexander Galimov and Alexander Sizov, a flight attendant. Both were in critical condition.

The plane exploded under clear skies at the Yaroslavl Airport. The city of 590,000 sits about 250 kilometres northeast of Moscow.

According to a veteran air traffic controller at the facility, the plane appeared unable to gain its required takeoff speed on the runway and travelled several metres into the grass beyond before getting airborne, Russia’s LifeNews.ru reported.

“A second later it leaned onto its left side and crashed,” Ariy Novik said.

It was about 10 metres above the ground at the point of impact, Novik told the news agency. He said everyone in the air-traffic control room saw the last seconds of the catastrophe.

The jet was part of an aging Soviet-era fleet that was to have been taken out of service next year. It was carrying the team from Yaroslavl to Minsk, the Belarus capital, for the team’s first game of the KHL season Thursday.

“This is the darkest day in the history of our sport,” International Ice Hockey Federation president Rene Fasel said.

According to Vladimir Gerasimov, an expert with the country’s Professional Union of Civil Aviation Pilots, the plane likely made at least two lurching attempts to gain the sky along the airfield’s three kilometre runway, only taking off after hitting the grass at the strip’s end. The 36-metre long plane typically needs only a kilometre to get airborne.

Gerasimov, who has helped conduct more than 100 crash investigations, told the Star that pilot error was likely involved.

“It seems there was a mistake in the (pilot’s) judgment — because when you have such difficulties taking off you are not supposed to fly,” Gerasimov said.

The crash left players and fans grieving around the hockey world, which has already been left in mourning in North America after three NHL tough guys were found dead in the past few months.

The Kontinental Hockey League is an international league that includes teams from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Slovakia. Lokomotiv was a three-time Russian league champion in 1997, 2002 and 2003. It took bronze last season in the KHL.

Korolev became an assistant coach last year with Lokomotiv after his final KHL season as a player in 2009-10.

At Korolev’s two-storey home on a leafy North York cul-de-sac, a half dozen cars and SUVs were parked out front Wednesday afternoon, and a friend of the family was on the porch, making a phone call. Another family friend who came to the door said the Korolev family “has asked for their privacy today.”

In a statement, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman called the accident a catastrophe.

“Though it occurred thousands of miles away from our home arenas, this tragedy represents a catastrophic loss to the hockey world — including the NHL family, which lost so many fathers, sons, teammates and friends who at one time excelled in our league,” Bettman said.

“Our deepest condolences go to the families and loved ones of all who perished.”

Vladislav Tretiak, the great Soviet netminder who is now president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, echoed Bettman’s sentiments.

“This is a huge tragedy for Russian as well as for international hockey. Several internationally well known players, a Canadian coach, all of them had remarkable careers in the big sport, have died in that crash,” Tretiak told the Star.

“We all are deeply shocked with the loss of such a great team,” he said.

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Former Leaf GM John Ferguson Jr. remembered Demitra. “My father (John Sr.) was with Ottawa when they drafted Pavol Demitra,” he said. “This guy was an electrifying talent, a real stand up team guy and a good person.”

Riley Armstrong, brother of current Maple Leaf Colby Armstrong, was also listed online as a Lokomotiv team member. But Riley Armstrong tweeted early Wednesday that he was alive and not with the team anymore.

“I’m safe but thanks for the kind words but pray and think of the players and their families on that flight,” he said in a tweet to his brother.

Colby Armstrong remained affected by the news that McCrimmon, whom he got to know during his time in Atlanta, had died.

“It’s a terrible thing that happened. I know (McCrimmon) has a family and kids. It’s crazy to think that it could happen. He was in Saskatoon when I was younger and a big part of the community. He helped me out a lot when I went to Atlanta.”

The 52-year-old from Plenty, Sask., spent 18 years in the NHL, most notably with Calgary, where his team won the Stanley Cup in 1989. He was named Flames captain the next season before moving on to the Detroit Red Wings, Hartford Whalers and Phoenix Coyotes, where he finished his career in 1997.

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Dave King, the longtime NHL and Canadian national team coach who spent the 2005-06 season as a head coach in Russia, said his players used to joke about the age and safety of the charter planes on which they travelled.

“There was one plane we’d get a lot and the players called it Pterodactyl Air. The planes were old. They were dated,” said King, now a developmental coach with the Coyotes.

Russia and the former Soviet republics combined for the worst air traffic safety record in the world in 2009, according to the International Air Transport Association, with an accident rate 13 times the world average. There were 24 aircraft accidents in Russia in 2010.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin immediately sent the country’s transport minister to the site, 15 kilometres east of Yaroslavl. President Dmitry Medvedev also planned to tour the crash site.

Tretiak denied the plane involved in yesterday’s crash was unsafe.

“I used such a plane all the time,” he said through a Russian translator. “The last time I used such a plane was three days ago. I just took part in a TV program where aviation experts (said) that plane had a capacity to fly for another 25 years without any problems,” he said.

The heads of the KHL called an urgent meeting to discuss the measures to be taken following the crash. The Salavat Yulaev versus Atlant match, which was to be the opening battle of the season, was cancelled.

“We will do our best to ensure that hockey in Yaroslavl does not die, and that it continues to live for the people that were on that plane,” said Tretiak.

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